LA Angels Tuesday News Crash: Predictions

Exactly. Caden Dana is stuck. Walbert Urena is apparently good. Klassen and Johnson were stuck, then showed some signs of being unstuck and possibly being good. Of those four, Dana and Klassen are the guys who got top prospect attention.

This is why a rebuilding team needs to take advantage of even the slightest possibility of an advantage in gathering together prospective MLB players. Then it needs to have the scouts and coaches to assess those opportunities that are hopefully geeked to the max. Then it needs those coaches and even more coaching to develop those kids. THEN you need to give a lot of these kidz the chance to try, fail, and try some more in the MLB.

Rinse. Repeat. Till about 35-50 prospects produce fifteen useful MLB players and hopefully a couple all star level guys.

Then, to stay successful, you need to keep that process running. Once you are at a high level of success you lose the advantages a loser has, but you gain the perception advantage, where 16 year olds in the Dominican and Japan want to play for you. You also lose the ability to play kidz as much, but you gain the freedom to trade lots of kidz for everyone’s FA to be stars.

But you’ve got to kick it off with as many of the best kidz you can get piled into the pot as possible. If you do it piecemeal you wind up with a couple talented players at a time that you have to trade at the deadline as their arb years wane and you finish with 78 wins.